Remixing Curriculum Tools: Hybrid Web Applications and Portals
Some new web applications are designed to aggregate large and disparate elements while others proved applications that are comprised of several functions layered on top of one another. For example, at first glance, Google Earth looks to be a map viewing application, but the user has many more options. On Google Earth, you can save locations on a map, with a place marker for each. Also, when the marker is selected, information you enter pops up, such as: links, pictures, a title and a description. These maps can also be saved and shared.
With the the growth of the internet the need for constant and varied information has increased exponentially. While, in the past, one may have been content with clicking on some bookmark and checking a few favorite sites each day that is not the case any longer. Users have become so accustomed to having, essentially, a constantly updated compendium of human knowledge at their fingertips that they have come to expect access to multiple sources of information in an efficient manner. This demand has led to the development of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and to the increased popularity of web applications called aggregators that collect information from sources chosen by the user (sometimes referred to as RSS readers). The purpose of an an aggregator is to collect and display "feeds" in one location. An RSS feed generally contains information that changes on a regular basis, such as news headlines and blog posts. So, if your morning computer routine consists of checking several sites (New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, a few blogs, etc.), you could use one of the aforementioned readers to do all of this from one location. Two popular RSS readers are Page Flakes and iGoogle. iGoogle allows the user to customize their experience more than with some other RSS readers. With iGoogle, one can not only add RSS feeds, but they can also change the visual theme or add customized RSS feeds (example: Top 5 movies at the box office, quote of the day, etc.) to their pages, both from a sizeable and constantly growing library.
Remixing Curriculum Tools: Hybrid Web Applications and Portals
Some new web applications are designed to aggregate large and disparate elements while others proved applications that are comprised of several functions layered on top of one another. For example, at first glance, Google Earth looks to be a map viewing application, but the user has many more options. On Google Earth, you can save locations on a map, with a place marker for each. Also, when the marker is selected, information you enter pops up, such as: links, pictures, a title and a description. These maps can also be saved and shared.Google Earth
With the the growth of the internet the need for constant and varied information has increased exponentially. While, in the past, one may have been content with clicking on some bookmark and checking a few favorite sites each day that is not the case any longer. Users have become so accustomed to having, essentially, a constantly updated compendium of human knowledge at their fingertips that they have come to expect access to multiple sources of information in an efficient manner. This demand has led to the development of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and to the increased popularity of web applications called aggregators that collect information from sources chosen by the user (sometimes referred to as RSS readers). The purpose of an an aggregator is to collect and display "feeds" in one location. An RSS feed generally contains information that changes on a regular basis, such as news headlines and blog posts. So, if your morning computer routine consists of checking several sites (New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, a few blogs, etc.), you could use one of the aforementioned readers to do all of this from one location. Two popular RSS readers are Page Flakes and iGoogle. iGoogle allows the user to customize their experience more than with some other RSS readers. With iGoogle, one can not only add RSS feeds, but they can also change the visual theme or add customized RSS feeds (example: Top 5 movies at the box office, quote of the day, etc.) to their pages, both from a sizeable and constantly growing library.
iGoogle
Page Flakes